


Frogsong

by Dumbothepatronus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ancient magic, Familiars, Feeling unworthy, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nature, Neville is more than what he seems, One Shot, Origin Story, POV Animal, POV Third Person, Pets, Pre-Hogwarts, Short One Shot, animal magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24190723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dumbothepatronus/pseuds/Dumbothepatronus
Summary: Trevor has been lonely for five long years. But when he finally finds a boy that hums with the ancient magic, he isn't sure if he's the right toad for the job.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	Frogsong

For five long winters, he’d been alone. Still, Trevor was in no hurry. Rain still fell and flies still buzzed, even if he had nobody to share his life with. It seemed like a dream, now that thousands of sunsets separated him from the time when his magic flowed freely and a human knew his name. But dreamlike as the past was, his bond still echoed; rippled through the ground whenever he found a particularly smooth rock by the green waters of a fly-peppered pond. Too far to connect, but close enough to sense that somewhere, somehow, his former companion still breathed.

Toad Bonds were supposed to be forever. Why his human had vanished, and where he had vanished to, was beyond Trevor’s understanding. It felt wrong, and he wondered if he was wrong. Perhaps a northern tide had ripped through him as an egg and damaged the very magic that flowed through him. For despite its failure, the magic remained—woven into every bumpy wart on his back, into every deep rumble of his twilight summer song.

But broken as he was, he couldn’t help but hop. An instinct, deeper than the widest lake, twitched at the back of his spine.  _ Hop, toad. Hop along, until you find your fated song. _

From one bush to the next, he hopped. Yesterday from the honeysuckle by the river to the kingcups near the dirt path, next week to the shade of the cobblestone cottage on the horizon. 

Then one full moon, as the breeze rushed through the cattails, the ground thrummed with ancient magic once again. 

It might have been the same song, if not for the rhythm. This music was sadder—hesitant and meek. But it sang to him still; like a counter-melody to its predecessor, and it stopped Trevor mid-leap. Water splashed against his skin as his back leg missed the stone he’d been leaping towards and landed in the water

These footsteps didn’t march; they didn’t swagger or prance. These footsteps slumped. 

He knew from his urge to sit, statue-still upon his rocky perch, that this child was special. Humans could be dangerous, even when magic flowed through their veins. It was his birthright as a familiar to sense the safe ones, and his destiny to seek the best ones—the ones with kind hearts, who didn’t posture, who didn’t boast. 

Only the greatest wizards earned the honor of a toad’s loyalty.

So why had his previous bond abandoned him? Why would the magic lead him to a deserter?

Across the rippled water, the boy twirled a boxwood branch around in the soft mud. His magic hummed—no, rumbled—at a frequency so low it tingled Trevor’s toes. But the cattails dwarfed him, and the roundness of his fingers suggested youth.

Even if Trevor wasn’t broken, wasn’t disgraced, no boy of five was ready to accept a familiar, least of all a toad. They weren’t like owls, perching on any hand that offered treats. Working familiars, those birds were, without a single drop of the ancient magic. They had no power to soothe, to support and strengthen. The haughty things spent their entire lives looking down their beaks, unaware that they were second best.

“Hello old friend,” said the boy one day, as the maple seeds drifted from the branches to float among the lily pads. “Catch any flies?”

Trevor nearly submerged himself.  _ Old friend? Me?  _ How could Trevor, the failed familiar, be worthy of this boy? This boy, with magic so subtle, so humble and understated, that the very roots hummed with its power?

The boy was still too young, and Trevor too broken. Still, he couldn’t imagine leaving the towering maple and the lily pad waterbeds he now thought of as his home. Absent was the constant tick at the base of his spine, the voice that told him to  _ hop, toad. Hop along, until you find your fated song.  _ Perhaps he would be the boy’s guardian, until another toad, a better toad, followed the music and found himself here. 

The boy’s hair grew past his eyebrows one summer, and he brushed it away along with his salty tears. “Gran says I’m to see the hairdresser soon.”

The magic hummed in the air between them, and Trevor longed to wind together with the boy, to buoy him up above the murky depths. But this boy wasn’t for him; not for a failure like him. So instead he sang to him, croaked a melody that filled the air with soothing softness.

The boy’s smile was Trevor’s reward. “Mum likes my hair long. When I visit the care ward, she twists it into plaits.” He gave a watery chuckle. “I suppose you don’t know your parents either?”

Trevor croaked louder then, a signal call to any toad within range. This boy needed a familiar; one with powerful magic that held pure. 

But no other toad came, not even when the boy grew taller, tall enough to reach the maple tree’s bottom branch. Almost daily, even when the waters fell from the sky and made the pond quiver, the boy stumbled to his usual pond-side spot. His pale fingers would trace over the clovers, or he’d hover his nose above the cornflower, so careful not to disturb its delicate petals.

The boy’s eyes, so often round with tears, often stalled on Trevor’s rock, but his hands never reached out to pluck him from it. 

On one such afternoon, the rain pattered a spring song against the maple leaves, and the magic thrummed. The boy’s face turned thoughtful, and he said, “Dad had a toad once, or so Gran says. She doesn’t believe in toads. Says their bonding magic’s just a myth.”

Trevor leaned into the magic, and the boy’s chin lifted. “She’s wrong, though. I can feel it, plain as the rain on my face.”

He croaked, and the sound filled his vocal sac until it puffed out like a balloon beneath his jaw. But his friend didn’t laugh; he didn’t grab at him with greedy hands. And for the first time in the three winters since he’d planted himself in this marsh, Trevor had that itch at the base of his spine.  _ Hop, toad. Hop along, until you find your fated song. _

And so he did. He leapt off his rock, onto the banks where the boy sat cross-legged, elbows on his pasty knees and head in his hands. The itch urged him on, urged him onto the child’s lap.

The boy didn’t flinch; he only smiled. This time, the smile reached his eyes. It vibrated deep into the rhythm of his magic and tinged it with a merriment Trevor had never heard—at least, not from him.

And yet, it was achingly familiar, instantly recognizable. The song of the father was the song of the son. It was so obvious now, with the joy mixed in. His instincts had led him home; not to Frank, his original companion, but to this boy. These round, sad eyes belonged to Frank’s son, and it was Trevor’s mission to brighten them.

“I’m Neville,” he said. “I don’t have many friends—well, any friends. ‘Cept you.”

Neville. Trevor let the name blow through his magic like a gentle breeze; let it weave and bind until the bond was so solid he could leap out and hop onto it.

_ Trevor,  _ he thought, pushing the word along the magical bond.  _ My name is Trevor. _

Neville’s jaw dropped. “Trevor. So it is true. I knew it was true.”

Trevor’s heart soared. Already he sensed the delight in the boy’s magic, the change in his countenance; he’d never be alone now. For an old, failed toad, perhaps he wasn’t so useless after all.


End file.
